Every Republican in Congress fails Blacks

The new “NAACP Report Card” for the first session of the 112th Congress is out.

The NAACP graded members of Congress on votes taken on such issues as repealing funding for healthcare reform, judicial nominations, deep budget cuts, job creation and criminal justice reform. It shows that every graded Republican member of the House and Senate received an ‘F’ on issues considered important to the nation’s oldest civil rights group.

In the Senate, all 46 GOP senators received F’s from the NAACP. Of those, 34 voted against the NAACP’s position every time, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and former presidential candidate John McCain. In the House, all 238 Republicans graded also received F’s. Ten House Republicans voted against the NAACP every time.

In stark contrast to Republicans, 47 Democrats in the Senate earned A’s, three received Bs, one got a D and none received an F. The two independents in the Senate, Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, received a B and an A, respectively. House Democrats voted like their counterparts in the Senate: 159 earned A’s, 22 got B’s, four earned C’s, one got a D and four received F’s.

Civil rights ‘hostility’
I have been studying NAACP legislative report cards for a couple of decades. I can’t remember a time when Republicans in Congress have been this solidified in their hostility towards civil rights. This NAACP Report Card should put to rest the lie that there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans. There is difference – a huge difference at that.

Even the Black Republican alternatives are not viable alternatives. Congressman Tim Scott of South Carolina backed the NAACP only 5 percent of the time. The only other Black House Republican, Allen West, also earned an F, supporting the NAACP 25 percent of the time.

Historical context
It hasn’t always been this way. In fact, most Blacks voted Republican until switching to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Dwight D. Eisenhower received 39 percent of the Black vote in 1956. In his close election with John F. Kennedy in 1960, Blacks gave Richard Nixon 32 percent of their vote.

The GOP had such moderates as New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, Mayor John Lindsey of New York City and Connecticut Sen. Lowell Weicker. It even had Black Republicans who fought for civil rights.

But the GOP began the political equivalent of ethnic cleansing in 1964 with the nomination of Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, who made an open appeal to segregationists. Goldwater’s “Southern Strategy” went up in flames, with Blacks giving Lyndon Johnson 94 percent of their vote.

Over the last half century, GOP moderates such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell have either been pushed out of the party or marginalized. Rabid Tea Party activists who have pushed an already conservative party to the extreme right have replaced moderates.

Serious gap
The voting records of Congressional leaders illustrate the gap in support of African-Americans in the two parties. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, earned an A on the NAACP Report Card, as did Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, got an F, as did Assistant Minority Leader John Kyl of Arizona.

The Republican Party’s hostility to civil rights reminds me of a comment made by the father of former GOP Congressman J.C. Watts, an African-American from Oklahoma. His father said, “A Black voting Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.”

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service. Contact him via www.georgecurry.com. Follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.